Indiana’s Commission on Improving the Status of Children approved a strategic plan that Chief Justice Loretta Rush says will help focus its work.

The process of developing and approving the commission’s strategic plan took months. Chief Justice Rush, who co-chairs the commission, says the result is a focus on four areas: child safety, juvenile justice, mental health/substance abuse and education.

And she says the plan will drive the commission’s work.

“How do we want to move the needle in Indiana? How do we want to use our collective authority within our agencies to do it?” Rush says.

That will include tracking outcomes to help evaluate success and facilitating better communication between agencies and non-governmental groups.

The plan also includes hiring the first employee solely dedicated to the commission, an executive director, though Rush says the legislature shouldn’t expect a big funding request.

“We’re going to try to find funding within the agencies just for the one executive director and the rest of it will be furnished by the judicial branch,” Rush says.

The commission hopes to hire the executive director in time to work with the General Assembly during its 2017 session.

Indiana's Commission on Improving the Status of Children voted Wednesday not to pursue a statewide newborn safety incubator program. But advocates of the so-called “baby boxes” say there’s hope for progress in the future.

Baby boxes, installed into the walls of “safe haven” locations, are meant to provide mothers an extra layer of anonymity when dropping off unwanted newborns.